just a small update. So being let down in November by the welder and then being let down again after I waited till February my dad somehow managed to find a welder who lives 5 minutes from my house and was able to start working on it straight away. As you guys know once you start peeling away at the surface, you see the true extent of work required...
there was a chrome strip probably them old skool wheel arch trims which was stuck on and fillered over, finding a repair arch wasn't hard
the welder told me that the floor had rotted through to the foot well which he has repaired and I got some new jacking plates on order for him to refit
here we are at a bit of a dead end, the welder says he can make something up to fix it but there will be quite a lot of filler work...im not keen on the idea of lots of filler so I need to find him a replacement...anyone who can point me in the right direction/solution would be very much appreciated

Try skoda on here, if you look in the for sale section he has a couple of e21s hes breaking.
Maybe he could chop that part out for you. Hes a fair guy and trustworthy.
I had the same thing with my welding took an age.

E21 323i [kashmere] Off the road pending restoration
E21 3231[Graphite metalic] Restoration and conversion to M52
E36 318i Had it nearly 10 years work in progress
E36 328i Daily driver
E39 520i Family car school run workhorse
E36 328i Touring

Fully agree, a wanted ad and some of our regular users should be able to get you some good used material or be able to point you in the direction of suppliers of new metal in some cases as well. Keep going, good you got a good welder in the end!

I wish it was, engine is still on a stand, engine bay is still not sprayed, however the engine and gearbox have been cleaned and ready to go back in and the engine bay has been sand blasted and primed. i will post some pictures soon. does anyone know where i can have a new VIN badge made up?

So it has been a whole year since I last posted anything. I am happy to say the car is finished and back on the road. I really do wish that statement was true. Its been more like 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I look at other peoples builds and think where do they get the time to do the work. And how the f**k do they make it look so easy without making mistakes!

So from the last picture the car has been moved in to the garage which was 1 major step forward as it took 3 years for that to happen.

I don't think Simba has seen the light of day for about 8 years

So after the repair works to the underside and cleaning up the rust spots we thought some fresh underseal on those areas would be enough to make it all look original again. the new underseal was grey and the original was an off white/beige colour.

£11.00 per pack and 8 packs were used

I was happy leaving it as it was as the frustration was starting to get to me and eventually it would all look the same once the road dirt and grime gets on it but I was persuaded to have white stone chip sprayed on top of the underseal to make it look more original in colour. But after a few days of the stone chip being applied it started to bubble and peel off in certain places. Mainly where the zinc oxide primer was used on the bare metal after the rust spots were cleaned up and also I don't think the original underseal was properly cleaned and there was still some waxoyl on there. (2 steps back)

£6.00 per bottle and 6 bottles were used

So what to do? tackle the areas where the underseal is peeling off? how do we know that in a years time other areas will not suffer in the same way. Ok so lets take it back to bare metal and start fresh! I did say on a number of occasions we should get the car acid dipped or completely sand blasted but was talked out of it (if the acid is not completely removed it can react with the paint. If the sand is not completely removed it will accelerate rust and can react with the paint. How are you going to get the car to the sand blaster )

So we are doing it the good old fashioned way approved by a 60 year old dad (twisted knot wire brush for angle grinder and nylon finishing discs oh and a chisel for the corners)

in a way I am glad what happened did as i wouldn't want to deal with that after the parts started going back on and we also found some other rust spots under the original underseal. We are working in small sections taking off the underseal and going back to bare metal and then spraying fresh primer on.

To keep me sane I decided to buy back my first car after I passed my driving test 17 years ago. Still going strong.